Fraternity and Sorority Life Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Most students move into Mountain View hall their Sophomore or Junior year. Moving in as early as your freshmen year depends on if the chapter has open spaces and their process in which they decide who will get those spaces. You are not forced to leave your freshmen housing once you become a member of a fraternity/sorority. Once you know which chapter you are joining, it is good to ask when you can move in to Mountain View and if the chapter has any live-in requirements.

Your first semester of being a new member will be your most active with chapter involvement because you will be going through a new member education program. As far as weekly time commitments, there is a chapter meeting every week that is mandatory and some events throughout the semester that may be mandatory (i.e. philanthropy events or service projects). Chapters also encourage weekly attendance to proctored study hours.

Our chapters encourage involvement in organizations outside of the chapter and want members to be involved in other opportunities. Most of our students are not only a member of their organization, but have a job, involved in intramurals, other organizations, ASNAU, and sports teams on campus.

Yes, you are allowed to join a fraternity/sorority if you are a member of a sports team. It is best to let the chapter know your schedule, so that they can work with you balancing school, your sports team, and the chapter.

Ask great questions during recruitment about the organization and its current members. It’s about finding a fit with a group of men or women that you mesh well with and your values align with the chapter’s values.

On average it costs about $425 per semester to be a member of a fraternity/sorority. The chapters have payment plans if you cannot afford it all up front. Dues are used to operate the organization and pay for all the events and activities that you will be participating in as a member.

Dues cover the cost of the activities that you will be participating in, supplies that you need, and to operate the organization. Other costs may come up throughout the year if you want to participate in other activities that are not covered by the chapter. These activities are not mandatory and you can choose if you want to spend additional money to participate.

Additional costs for sorority members will be clothing options for sorority recruitment in the fall. Chapters will give an idea of what to purchase, and then you can choose how much you want to spend.

They are all the same in that they are values based social Greek organizations, the difference is that they report to different trade associations (umbrella organizations) at the national level. These trade associations develop policies and procedures in addition to creating partnerships with host institutions to help advocate for the fraternities and sororities. . Interfraternity Council fraternities are members of the North-American Interfraternity Conference, College Panhellenic Council sororities are members of the National Panhellenic Conference, and our United Greek Council fraternities and sororities are members of various trade organizations such as the National Association of Latino/a Fraternal Organization and identify as multicultural or have defining principles that celebrate traditionally-underrepresented students.

Yes, you can join whenever you like. Some students prefer to take some time to figure out your involvements or time commitments before they go through recruitment. For our CPC sororities fall is the formal recruitment process where all the sororities are open for recruitment. If you wait until spring only the chapters that have open spaces will be recruiting. If you prefer to get a chance to visit all the chapters, then the fall process may be best. If you prefer a more informal recruitment process and know that not all houses will be recruiting, then spring may work better for you. Our IFC fraternities and UGC chapters are all open for recruitment both Fall and Spring semesters.

It is an 8-12 week process in which new members or “pledges” are assimilated to the organization that they join. During their pledge process they will learn various things such as: time management, chapter management, core values of the organization, history, and more about themselves and their brothers.

While “pledging” it is thought that the new member will be required to be doing something fraternity related at all times of the day. It is possible to be doing that but also unnecessary, the new member needs to find the right amount of balance between his studies and his extracurricular activities no matter what they are. Required time for new members throughout the week consists of attending both active and new member meetings, study hours where there will be active members proctoring to make sure that school work is being accomplished, and lastly intramural games and community service projects that they would like to participate in. It seems like a lot but if the free time new members have is used effectively then there should be no reason why both academics and pledge ship cannot be accomplished together.

During the process of learning chapter management new members will learn how to run an effective business meeting. They attend both active chapter meeting as well as the new member meeting both held once a week. During the active meeting they observe to see how meetings should run and then replicate that during their meetings. After the process the new members should feel comfortable in the active meetings to voice their opinion and to properly bring items to the table.

During their interactions with members of the fraternity, active, alumni or new member, they will learn about the organizations history every day. While doing this they will see how the core values of the fraternity have been incorporated into the founding and continuation of the organization. By getting to know the active members as well as the member of their “pledge class” the new member will learn a lot about the different backgrounds that everyone has and how that has affected their fraternity experience.

Throughout the pledging process new members will learn a lot of information. Whether it is how to manage their time to do well in academics as well as have fun with their fraternity, or if it is learning about the history of their organization and how the challenges that have faced both past and present.

Sorority Recruitment is a formal process and a mutual selection process. As a Potential New Member (PNM), you will visit all of the chapters on the first night and then after each night you will have to eliminate chapters and decide what chapters you want to move forward with. For example, after the first night you have to choose 5 chapters to move forward with out of the 7. The chapters are also doing the same with the women going through recruitment. They are choosing which women they would like to continue seeing the next night and we match your choices with the sororities’ choices. In the end you end up with a chapter that really wants you and you really want them.

We do not require you to have recommendation letters in order to go through sorority recruitment. If you have letters of recommendation, you can send them directly to the sororities’ president which is listed under each individual chapter’s information page. You can also email Alaina Agnew, the Coordinator of Fraternity and Sorority Life to get more information regarding letters of recommendation. If you are a legacy, which means that you have a relative that is a member of a sorority (typically this pertains to your Grandma, Mom, Aunt, or Sister), then you will need to contact the sorority’s national headquarters to fill out their form for their legacy reference. Each chapter is different, so contact the sorority directly or visit their national headquarters’ website to find out.

No, you can join at any point in your college career. About 15% of women going through Fall formal recruitment are upperclassmen (Sophomore – Senior). The advantage of going through recruitment in the Fall is that you can have a chance to join all the sororities because they are all recruiting. Spring recruitment is informal and more casual. If the sorority has spaces, then they can recruit in the spring, but not all may be open for recruitment. You can get more out of your experience by joining your freshmen and sophomore year.

Fraternity and United Greek Council (UGC) recruitment is an informal process. The chapters will give a listing of their events that you can attend during Rush Week. The events are social and a way to get to know chapter members and more about their chapter. Some chapters may have invite-only events for those moving forward in their process and have interviews. At the end of the week the chapters hand out bids, an invitation to join their organization, and you can decide if you want to accept their bid. It is possible to receive a bid from more than one chapter but you are only allowed to accept one bid.